Macedonia, Albania Hold Business Forum

Topi and his Macedonian counterpart, George Ivanov, will open the forum, which aims at enhancing bilateral economic ties and establishing greater cooperation among companies.

The Albanian business delegation as well as their Macedonian hosts will try to deepen cooperation in the fields of export and import of food and agriculture products, tourism, construction, software and hardware services, pharmaceutical products, insurance services, real estate, publishing, transport and logistics, energy and more.

Upon his arrival yesterday the Albanian president held talks with Ivanov, Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski and Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

The two presidents reconfirmed a pledge to build strong bilateral relations.
 
In his address to the Macedonian parliament, Topi expressed his gratitude for Macedonia’s recognition of Kosovo.
 
“Our cooperation is not limited only to bilateral ties. They also contain a crucial regional dimension. The fact that our countries are decisively oriented and committed to joint Euro-Atlantic goals enriches the relations with significant international dimension and supplements the broad framework of this cooperation,” he added.

Skopje and Tirana have no open issues and the two countries have recently intensified political cooperation, largely thanks to their common Euro-Atlantic goals.
 
While Macedonia is formally ahead of Albania in its effort to enter the EU, Albania became a NATO member in 2008, something that Macedonia hopes to achieve once it solves its bilateral name dispute with Greece.

Macedonia’s large ethnic Albanian population is seen as one of the main potential areas for strengthening bilateral cooperation in the future.

However, Tirana and Skopje are still not directly linked by highway nor by railway, developments which are seen as main prerequisites for better economic ties.